More Clinton Plants - On Blogs!

I imagine before it's over, there will be some sock puppetry going on here, too. Via BlueHampshire blog. Apologies are starting to look like vitamins where Hillary's campaign is concerned - they seem to be needing about one a day.

Recently, we admins noticed this comment thread on a recommended diary, and the oddities it posed made us look a little deeper than we normally would.

As the comment thread revealed, users pinballwizard, elf, shley24, MTAY all registered in succession to recommend the diary. A further look by us revealed that:

* they had registered within minutes of each other, including another user a bit later, janbaby, who  was not among the recommenders,
* the same IP address was used by all of them, and is registered to the Clinton campaign,
* two other recommenders, blues and kmeisje, also registered from the same IP address.

To be clear, and to reiterate what's stated in our Getting Started page: paid campaign staff are welcome in this community, but are asked to disclose their affiliation to a campaign, either through their signature line, a disclosure statement on a diary, or even in the choosing of a username. The fact that all the users mentioned above came from a Clinton campaign IP, but did not register with campaign email addresses, and avoided making comments or diaries, instead only recommending pro-Clinton diaries, strikes us as gaming the system and a form of "recommend astroturf."  As a result, we have banned those accounts, and will do so again for undisclosed paid staffers of any campaign if need be.

Comments

[BobInStamford]

Settle down, Kojak.

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

The Blue Hamsire site goes on to say:

"We have spoken with Kathleen Strand, who assured us that this was not an orchestrated effort but the product of over-eager staffers and volunteers, done without her awareness, and that it will not be repeated."

Gosh, that refrain is starting to sound familiar.